Report of suspicious fox in Bridgewater earlier on same day as rabid fox attack

Wednesday

Jun 24, 2009 at 12:01 AM

The rabid fox that attacked a 39-year-old Bridgewater mother of two on Curve Street last week may have struck earlier in the same day on the same street.

Rebecca Hyman

The rabid fox that attacked a 39-year-old Bridgewater mother of two on Curve Street last week may have struck earlier in the same day on the same street.

Health Agent Stanley Kravitz said the fox that bit Michelle Fusco on the evening of June 17 tested positive for rabies.

Animal Control Officer Donna Morris was not on duty when Fusco was attacked, but she responded to a call at 9:50 a.m. on June 17 at a nearby address on Curve Street about a fox in someone’s yard.

She said the fox was not attacking the resident or foaming at the mouth, but it was behaving a bit oddly, and it didn’t run away as would normally be expected. The man was attempting to keep it in his yard, in case it was rabid, by batting it with his rake, and it was biting at the rake, Morris said.

She said she normally carries a gun, but she did not have it with her on that occasion. But even if she’d had it, she would not have used it in a residential neighborhood, she said.

Instead Morris attempted to catch the animal with her net and called the police. The animal ran away into the woods before the cruisers arrived. Morris said she and police had no alternative but to advise the resident to call them if he spotted the animal.

Morris said it would have been impractical to try to track the fox down in the woods, particularly since she wasn’t even sure he was rabid. She said the town has no system in place to alert a neighborhood when such an incident takes place.

She said it’s likely it was the same fox that later chased Fusco and three young children and bit Fusco on the ankle, but there is no way to be sure. The attack took place outside of the home of Laurie Morgan, also of Curve Street, where hours before an end-of-kindergarten party was held with 25 children, Morgan said.

The animal might have been more aggressive and frenzied by that time because the disease had progressed or it might have been a different animal, Morris said.

Morgan, whose 4-year-old son Ryan narrowly escaped being bitten, said she does not blame the animal control officer for the later incident, but she’d like to see the town devise a plan for notifying neighbors in such situations.

She was lucky enough to have been given a warning from a mother who attended the party and who’d been flagged down by a resident of Curve Street. But many other neighbors were not aware of the incident, Morgan said.

Morgan said she kept an eye open for the fox but did not cancel the party because she did not realize the level of danger it posed until after the incident.

If she ever got such a warning again, she would not hesitate to cancel a party or do whatever it takes to protect her family, she said.

“Whenever I close my eyes, I see Ryan’s face. He was terrified. I just want to make sure the next person this happens to isn’t a child,” Morgan said.

The Curve Street attack was the second such incident in town in less than a year.

Last July, 71-year-old Shirley Doyle of High Pond Estates was attacked by a fox that later tested positive for rabies.

Kravitz said that’s not an unusually high number of attacks. Generally, the town sees one or two a year.

Kravitz said the safest thing is to assume wild animals are rabid and stay away from them. It is also essential to inoculate pets against the deadly virus, so they don’t contract it and spread it to humans, he said.

Morris said she gets several calls about potentially rabid animals a week, but most of them turn out to be false alarms.

She said it is a myth that a fox seen in the daytime must be rabid because they are nocturnal animals. This time of year, they are often out hunting to feed their young, she said.

But that doesn’t mean it is a good idea to approach any wild animal, said Morris, who has been the animal control officer in Bridgewater since 1993 and whose hours were slashed to 13 a week with recent budget cuts. She is also the animal control officer in East Bridgewater, where she works 22 hours a week.

Linda Huebner, the deputy director of the advocacy department at the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, said some animal control officers carry guns and others do not. Huebner said the state currently has no training requirements for animal control officers. The protocols they follow vary from town to town, she said.

Huebner said the MSPCA supports a bill currently before the state Senate to require training of animal control officers.

“These people are being asked to carry weapons in some cases. They have to deal with rabid animals. It’s a big job. It’s a dangerous job,” Huebner said.

Morris said she is licensed to carry a firearm, but by far prefers to leave the firing of a weapon to police officers. She has not undergone the same kind of rigorous training they have, she said.

She carries a gun for safety purposes, given that she deals at times with potentially vicious animals such as pit bulls, and has fired it on occasion to put down a sick raccoon in a non-residential neighborhood, she said.

Morris said she has no written procedure to follow in cases such as the fox getting away on the morning of June 17.

“You have to use common sense,” Morris said.
Bridgewater Independent

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.

Lifestyle

Original content available for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons license, except where noted.
The Helena-West Helena World - Helena, AR ~ 417 York, Helena, AR 72342 ~ Privacy Policy ~ Terms Of Service